


World On Fire

by ShrewdStrawberry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 11:59:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13570164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShrewdStrawberry/pseuds/ShrewdStrawberry
Summary: The day the Reapers invaded Earth, one landed on Hogwarts. The castle survived, but the Statute of Secrecy won't.





	World On Fire

Harry Potter, Headmaster of Hogwarts, watched over the Great Hall as it bustled with the merriment of a weekend breakfast. The four tables were no longer a reliable way to judge how many students of a particular House were present; he could spy badges of ties of red, green, yellow and blue scattered all over the Hall. He stole the last rash of bacon while his Professors were distracted by a debate about timetables and tucked in.

“Happy Birthday Grandfather!” a pair of excited young voices interrupted his meal.

Harry looked up to see two of his brown haired great-great-grandchildren grinning at him from across the staff table. They were second years, Phillip and Gerard.

“Grandpa Hugo said you weren’t in England, or we would have come visit,” Phillip said.

“Where did you go?” Gerard asked.

Harry was cut off by arrival of another grandchild. The gangly redhead clasped a hand on each of his cousins’ shoulders and winked conspiratorially at the man who had taught him to fly.

“He’ll tell you when you’re older,” the sixth year said, before continuing loudly. “So how was your time at the Veela colony, Grandpa?”

“About as interesting as your detention with Professor Lovegood,” Harry said, looking at him over the top of his glasses. “Is there a reason she might have scheduled a meeting with me to talk about it, Ronald?” If the boy thought he was ready to cheek him at the breakfast table, he had another thing coming.

Ron’s ears turned bright red, just as his namesake’s used to, and he muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

Harry turned down the table and raised his glass to Athena, the granddaughter of his old friend Luna. Her eyes flicked to Ron, and she winked as she raised her glass in return.

“How old is it this year anyway, Grandpa?” Ron asked, as the twins tittered at his embarrassment. “209? 210?”

“206, don’t get ahead of yourself,” Harry said, scratching at his eternally messy nest of hair. It was mostly white these days, although a few streaks of black held on stubbornly. “Tell your father I want to see him about his latest batch of Wheezes, too. Manuel has already seen me to complain, and for once, I’m inclined to agree with him.”

Ron sighed. “Yes, Headmaster. Come along, goblins,” he said to his cousins.

Phillip scowled, and Gerard spoke for the both of them. “We’re not goblins, Cousin Troll.”

“Sure you’re not,” Ron said as he led them away.

Harry smiled at their antics. His childhood friends might have passed on, but it was always good to see that some of them lived on in their descendants. Even if one of them took far too much pleasure in inventing ludicrous adventures for him.

The Great Hall darkened suddenly, and Harry looked up in alarm, just in time to see a great dark form pass over Hogwarts’ airspace. Red lightning crackled in its wake, and oily fingers ran down his spine. A hush fell over the Hall, and all eyes turned to him.

“Missy,” Harry spoke to the air beside him, and a house elf appeared with a pop. She wore a replica of a Hogwarts school uniform expertly stitched together from old tea towels.

“The Great Harry Potter is calling for Missy?” she asked in a high piping voice.

“Could you please pop outside and tell me if you see anything unusual?”

MIssy saluted smartly and popped away.

“Please return to your breakfasts, students,” Harry said, raising his voice to be heard throughout the Hall. “I would hate for the house elves hard work to go to waste.” He returned his attention to his own plate, his outward appearance a study of ease.

Whatever calm he might have instilled in the student body was shattered when Missy reappeared a moment later, eyes wide and limbs shaking.

“Great Harry Potter Sir!” she shrieked. “There is a Terrible Evil Thing standing in the lake and It looked at Missy and It sawy Missy and--”

“Missy!” Harry barked, stopping the house elf’s panicked words. “Slowly. Tell me what you saw.” He held out his goblet of water to her.

Missy took a shaky gulp. “The Terrible Evil Thing in the lake tried to make Missy be a bad house elf!” she squeaked, taking another gulp of water. “It tried to make Missy-make Missy-” she began to shake like a leaf in a hurricane “it tried to make me hurt Great Harry Potter Sir,” she finished in a whisper.

“The Terr-the thing in the lake tried to compel you to hurt me?” Harry asked sharply. The Great Hall was silent, students and teachers alike straining to listen in.

Missy nodded wretchedly. “Missy saw it spit fire at the greenhouses too.”

“You’ve done wonderfully, Missy. Warn the other elves to stay in the kitchens,” Harry said, and Missy disappeared with a pop.

Harry rose to his feet, shedding the persona of friendly old Headmaster. “Professor Malfoy, Professor Lupin, with me,” he said, calling on his two Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, before turning to his Deputy. “Athena, organise the students. Get them to their dormitories.” As Athena gained the students’ attention with a flurry of exploding colourful bubbles, Harry turned to his Defence Professors.

Tiberius Malfoy was young, but had displayed prodigious talent on the duelling circuit, earning comparisons to Harry’s son Albus, comparisons made easier by the green eyes he had inherited from Harry’s granddaughter. He gave a nod to his elder, wand held in steady fingers.

Antigone Lupin was the daughter of Teddy and Victoire, and close to retirement. Despite her age, there were few wands who would cross her, and any who suspected her of using her Metamorphmagus skills to stave off the effects of age voiced their thoughts well out of earshot.

They fell in behind Harry without a word as he led the way through the Hall, opening the doors with a flick of his wand. They made straight for the Entrance Hall, the main doors swinging open for them as they approached. They crossed the threshold, and stopped in their tracks.

An enormous metal construct stood in the Black Lake, legs partly submerged. Its scarab like body held what seemed to be a single red eye that pulsed malevolently as it swept around. The greenhouses were a shattered wreck of glass and metal, and flames licked at their remains.

“That is a starship,” Antigone said. “Are the Muggles attacking?” Her tone was incredulous.

“That is no human design,” Tiberius said. “Nor Turian. Batarian perhaps?”

A deep bass horn rang out, reverberating through their skulls. They staggered, their Occlumency shields straining under the unexpected pressure.

“That is no starship,” Harry said grimly. “That thing is alive.” He wiped a trail of blood from his nose.

“A living creature of that size?” Antigone asked, doubtful.

The red eye turned on them and flared. Harry reacted instinctively, and a broad silver shield sprang into existence before them. Blistering heat washed over them, Tiberius and Antigone supplementing Harry’s shield with their own. A short eternity later, the attack ceased and they allowed their shields to drop.

Harry took in the melted stonework of the Hogwarts entrance, and his holly wand began to warm in his palm. “Antigone, send a Patronus to the Ministry,” Harry said. “Hogwarts is under attack and we will be using all means at our disposal to defend it.”

Tiberius’ heartbeat quickened. He had never met the man who had killed three Dark Lords, only the kindly grandfather. The steel in the man’s eye and the set of his jaw said that was about to change.

Antigone summoned her Patronus and murmured her message to it. A moment later, a silver wolf bounded away.

The metal beast seemed to regard them for a moment, before turning its attention elsewhere - to Hogwarts itself. Its eye, focused on Gryffindor Tower, glowed brightly as it prepared another attack and Harry felt a powerful rush of old hate.

“Avada Kedavra,” the old man said. His forehead and chest radiated pain, and an orb of green absence shot from his wand. It hit the eye of the great metal beast, and the beast stopped. Green lightning crackled over its body.

“Surely not,” Antigone said.

Harry watched the creature grimly. His gut told him it wasn’t done yet. Sure enough, it began to shift in place, as if awaking from a deep slumber. Its eye began to glow dimly.

“Andi, another Patronus. Tell everyone to evacuate to the dungeons,” Harry said. Another silver wolf loped off. “Tiberius, brooms for the two of you. We should not make ourselves easy targets.”

Tiberius summoned a pair of fast brooms, and they arrived just as the creature recovered from the Killing Curse, its attention now focused solely upon them. “Perhaps we should split up?” He suggested, before speeding off across the lake, toes almost brushing its surface.

Antigone tapped herself on the head with her wand and shimmered out of sight, flying off at a slightly more sedate pace than the young Malfoy.

Harry stared at the alien aggressor standing in his pond. Its great bass horn rang out again, pressing at his mind, but this time he was prepared for it. He took a step forward onto scorched earth, his cloak billowing behind him. His next step was onto open air, then another, and another. The wind tugged at his hair as he rose into the sky, flying under his own power.

Tiberius was flying loops around the legs of the beast, trailing something in his wake, and Antigone was nowhere to be seen. While they made their own attempts, Harry opted for a more direct approach. He directed his wand not at the creature, but at the sky above it.

Clouds formed and darkened, centred above the invader. Harry flicked his wand downwards, and lightning boomed forth. It smote the beast upon its body, and a series of smaller bolts rained down after it. Harry blinked the afterimages away as the echoes of thunder died off.

The beast was completely unaffected. Red fire pulsed from its eye, and Harry strafed to the side to avoid it. The attack continued on to score Hogwarts’ outer wall, leaving blackened and twisted stone in its wake. Parts of a burning hallway were visible through the sundered wall.

Harry turned back to the beast, wand twirling in his fingers. That eye had to go.

The water of the lake began to churn, as if a great mass were shifting beneath it. The disturbance broke the surface directly underneath the metal creature, and Harry shook his head.

Little Andi Lupin dispelled the bubblehead charm around her face as she rose from the lake, standing atop one of its denizens as its tentacles burst up around her. The kraken of the Black Lake had come to the defence of its home. Limbs the thickness of the Whomping Willow twisted around a great metal leg, and it groaned under the strain.

The leg flexed against the constricting tentacles, slowly but surely overpowering the young kraken - and that was only one leg. Antigone began casting hexes and jinxes on the leg; simple schoolyard spells that had no place in a proper duel but were proving effective as the limb found itself unable to respond to the commands of the body.

Tiberius succeeded in whatever task he had set himself, tapping his wand on the object he had trailed and looped around the beast’s legs. “Unbreakable Charm on a rope!” he shouted as he flew past Harry. “That’ll keep it in place while we take care of it!”

The creature attempted to look down, red eye charging in preparation to burn away the annoyance beneath it. It stumbled and almost fell as the simple rope binding it grew tight.

“We cannot bring it down through force,” Harry said, using a messenger spell to ensure he was heard easily by his fellows. “Transfigure its limbs, use its own weight to bring it down.”

Antigone took the advice to heart, and turned her attention to the joint in the leg constricted by the kraken. There was an almighty crack, like a cliff of ice breaking away to fall into the ocean, and shards of stone went flying through the air. The leg became dead weight, the creature rebalancing on its remaining limbs. Andi directed the kraken to retreat back to safety beneath the surface of the lake, its presence made redundant by Malfoy’s trick with the rope.

Harry eyed the creature with concern. Not concern that they would fail to overcome it, but concern at what would happen when they did. With a sigh, he retrieved a golden hourglass from within his robes; a memento from his days as an Unspeakable. He doubted he would be given another one after he destroyed this one too.

With the tip of his wand, he made a small cut in his left palm, and watched as blood welled forth, pooling. Carefully, scarcely breathing, he dipped the gold edges of the tim turner into his blood, taking great pains to ensure the hourglass remained unspoiled. Winds buffeted his cloak as he flew through the air, but the chain he held was still, grasped by his magic.

Antigone and Tiberius had taken higher to the sky, drawing the burning eye of the metal beast up and away from the school. After it seared the air with its gaze they would swoop down to transfigure more of its limbs before it could charge its weapon for another blast. There was a rush of sound, like crinkling glass, and the grating of metal on metal. Water crashed down from what had been a leg joint, and the beast staggered, starting to topple back into the lake--but its body thrummed, an unseen force righting it. A deep bass roar rang out, carrying with it wrath and rage and the countless weight of untold ages. The walls of Hogwarts shook, and those sheltered inside trembled.

Harry stopped above the beast that was trying to kill his goddaughter and his great grandson, completely ignored. His hands were steadier than a surgeon’s as he held the time turner by its chain in his bleeding hand. The morning sun glinted off what gold wasn’t smeared crimson, and he prepared himself. He lined his wand up to the narrowest point of the hour glass, and, like Ron petting an acromantula, tapped it.

Colour and sound fled the area, like a Weasley firework had just gone off next to his head. The hourglass cracked, minutely at first, but then expanding outwards like a spiderweb. The metal beast looked up, whatever facsimile of life that animated it aware that something Wrong had occurred, and Harry dropped the time turner.

“Andi, Tiber, back to the castle,” he said, magic carrying his command. Their brooms wheeled for the main doors, and he watched the falling trinket with a Seeker’s eyes. Now came the hard part.

The time turner hit the beast with a faint clink he heard hundreds of metres above and felt rippling through his veins. A moment passed, within it an eternity, and for that moment, the being known as Harry Potter did not exist.

The universe skipped a beat…

...and Harry Potter let out a shaky breath as he stepped back into time and existence. He blinked, the sound of crashing waves drawing his attention. Looking down, he saw the roiling surface of the Great Lake breaking against its shores, as if a huge mass had suddenly been removed. Of the being that had threatened his home, there was no sign. Slowly, he floated down to Earth. His chest hurt and his vision was blurry, but he stood tall in defiance of his aching bones. The castle doors opened, and he turned for them. Antigone and Tiberius stepped out, wary.

“Where is it?” Tiberius asked, coming out to meet his great grandfather halfway.

“Gone,” Harry said.

“Gone? Not destroyed?” Antigone asked sharply.

“Trapped,” the old man said wearily. “In a Moment in Time.”

“Uncle!” Antigone said. “You swore you would never do that again.”

“It was necessary,” Harry said. He took a breath. “Are the students safe?”

“Panicked, but no deaths,” Tiberius said. He flicked his wand, a messenger spell flying off. “I let them know the threat is over.”

“You’re going to have to talk to the President again,” Antigone said, posture settling back into that of a stern teacher.

Harry scratched at his chin. The pain in his chest was easing. “Perhaps. The ICW, at the least.”

“That thing was beyond any technology I’ve ever seen,” Tiberius said. “I can’t think of any Citadel race with the capability to build something like that. Not with the… ability it had.”

For a moment, Harry allowed himself to think of his old schoolyard rival and what the man would think of his descendant being one of the most knowledgeable experts on Muggle technology. His lips quirked with amusement, and he shook his head. His descendant, too. Aloud, he said, “sounds like a decision for my daughter.”

“You know the Minister is just going to tell you to deal with it,” Tiberius said. “Grand Aunt Lily has no patience for your excuses.” His tone was teasing.

As if on cue, the Patronus that Antigone had sent to the Ministry came loping back. It dissolved into a white mist that filtered through her temple and she froze, a look of incomprehension on her aging face. Harry’s breath stilled, centuries of experience telling him bad news was about to swoop down on swift wings.

Antigone looked to her godfather, grief in her eyes. “The Ministry is gone. No survivors. London is falling. There are more. So many more…”

Harry turned away from the castle. Trembling fingers slipped his wand into his pocket and smoothed his robe. “Raise the defences. Sound for Sanctuary. Protect Hogwarts.” Already he could see families Apparating to the school gates and rushing past the winged boars to safety. He began to walk towards an old white marble tomb. His last child was dead, and it held something he needed.

Tiberius departed immediately, far too young to relate to his ancestor in his moment of grief, but Antigone lingered.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“France,” he answered. Gone was the mantle of Headmaster, as well as the slayer of Dark Lords. There was only the grieving father, and a burning need for revenge. “Go now,” he called as he came to a stop before the tomb.

The lid rose with a rap of his knuckles, and an old man was revealed, laying serenely on purple velvet. He could almost be sleeping. Harry spared but a glance for his old mentor, before gently taking the wand that lay upon his chest. Cold spread through his body as he took up the Elder Wand for the first time in a century, and a moment later, he disappeared with a soft snap.

**X x X**

He stood on a lonely hilltop, overlooking a vineyard. Row upon row of grape vines were left unattended, buckets and secateurs abandoned in the dirt. A tractor sat idling where its operator had left it. The morning sun was warm, and a pleasant breeze stirred the air, while in the distance, a city was being massacred. Great metal constructs strode through the metropolis, a path of destruction in their wake. The one point of resistance to be seen, an ageing Alliance cruiser, was swatted from the sky with casual disregard by a scythe of red from a ship an order of magnitude larger than the one that had darkened his own doorstep.

Harry Potter turned from the sight, bottling up the rage and sorrow he felt for later, when it would be needed. He trudged down the hill, feeling every day of his two centuries and change. This was not an enemy to be fought by old men, and so he had come to France, to make good on a debt owed to him. These machines had taken his daughter from him, and he would not let his aching back and bad joints impede his vengeance.

The ruins of a church, older than he, was his goal. Only two walls were somewhat intact, crumbled stone all that remained of the others. The steeple, topped by an iron cross, surely still stood only due to divine intervention. He stopped where the main doors had once stood, and knocked heavily on the stone frame.

“Open up, Nicholas,” Harry said. “I know you know I’m here.”

A seam in reality appeared, and a door that wasn’t opened just a crack, like the person on the other side didn’t want what you were selling but thought it terribly rude to just ignore you. A single blue eye peered out.

“Yes?” a young, male voice asked, drawing the word out.

“It’s me. I’ve come to collect,” Harry said.

“Of course you have,” the voice said irritably. “Don’t just stand out there then, come in.” There was a sound like a chain latch being unhooked, and the doorway in reality swung open.

Harry stepped out of a world under siege and into a verdant meadow. The sun shone overhead, and dragonflies buzzed amongst the long grass. There was no trace of the vineyard or the ruined church to be seen.

“You still take you tea the same?” Nicholas asked, looking back over his shoulder. “Penny put the kettle on.”

“Four and four, these days,” Harry said. He looked his host over; his brown hair was carefully tousled, and he wore the tight, almost military clothing favoured by Muggle teens these days.

“You’ve gotten worse than Albus ever was,” Nicholas said.

“Better tea than all manner of sweets,” Harry said. Their slow pace through the meadow galled him, knowing what was happening out in the world, but his host had an entirely different sense of time than most.

“Here we are,” Nicholas said. All at once, a brickwork cottage appeared before them, smoke curling lazily from its chimney. The scent of fresh baking wafted through an open window, and the front door drifted open as they approached.

“Oh hello Harry, it’s so good to see you!” a blonde woman exclaimed, turning from her baking at a wood burning stove. The dress she wore was more suited to the 20th century than the 23rd. “Nicky didn’t tell me we were expecting company.”

“Perenelle,” Harry greeted. “I’m afraid I’m dropping in unannounced.”

“It does seem to be the day for it,” Perenelle said. “Do take a seat, the cake is almost--”

“I do not have the time,” Harry said, curt tone cutting through the pleasantries. “And today of all days, nor do I have the patience.”

Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel stilled and turned to stare at him in unison, all the little tics and fidgets that came naturally to humans falling away. They exchanged a glance, and within it a conversation, before smoothing away their uncanny stillness.

“I will not host the entirety of Hogwarts and their families,” Nicholas said. “But your direct descendants are welcome.”

“The more interesting professors, too,” Perenelle said. “It would be a shame to lose the knowledge. Bring the Library.”

“I am not a supplicant come begging for sanctuary, Nicholas,” Harry growled, joints protesting as he straightened. People had long questioned why he had never taken the Flamels up on their offers of collaboration, and he was only reminded of his reasons with each meeting. “My world burns, and I will not stand idly by and watch, concerned only for knowledge.” He glared at the immortals. “I come not for sanctuary. I come for the Elixir.”

The Flamels gave up all pretence of normality and met his gaze evenly; some of the precious few who could do so. Their time scattered clothing and mannerisms fell to the wayside as the affections they were, and a pair of beings almost a millennia old looked him over, judging.

“You never clung to life or feared death before now,” Perenelle said, her voice ageless. “What changed?” She looked to the wand at his hip, its distinctive handle poking out of his robe.

“Nothing has changed,” Harry said. “I have always been Ignotus, never Antioch, never Cadmus.”

“Something clearly has,” Nicholas said. He stared unblinking, as if his gaze could tear the answers from Harry’s soul.

“I do not expect you to understand,” Harry said. “I expect you to honour your debt.”

“He lost someone,” Perenelle said to her husband, as if they were the only two in the room. She did not shift her gaze.

“His daughter,” Nicholas said. “The English Ministry is gone.”

Harry’s wand hand twitched minutely, unmissed by his hosts. “You asked for my aid decades ago for a reason, Nicholas,” he said, temper fraying. “I’m not as spry as I once was, but I’ve gotten much nastier.”

After a long moment, NIcholas blinked, and called up some of his human mask. “You know I never renege on a debt,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He stepped away, disappearing deeper into the cottage, and leaving Harry alone with Perenelle.

“If you ever threaten us again, you will live broken to regret it,” Perenelle said.

“If I ever threaten you, madam,” Harry said, “you’ll know it. Your cake is burning.”

Perenelle sniffed, and vanished the blackened cake with the barest twitch of her wand. “Tea?”

“No thank you.”

Nicholas returned, a glimmering red stone held in his palm. It looked identical to the Stone that Harry had himself held almost two centuries ago. The alchemist rummaged within a cupboard, and retrieved a crude wooden goblet. He held the Stone over it, fist clenched, and squeezed.

The Philosopher’s Stone began to sweat, beads of pearlescent silver liquid dripping from it into the goblet waiting below. The goblet was soon filled, and Harry reached for it, heart heavy in his chest.

Nicholas hesitated, a frown creasing his young face. “You’re sure of your choice, Harry Potter?” he asked.

“Needs must,” Harry said. His hand remained outstretched.

“Two hundred years of natural life, and another half century at least remaining,” Nicholas said. “You would live these years again, just to face one more threat?”

“This threat isn’t another Dark Lord I can leave to my grandchildren,” Harry said. “You know what is happening out there.”

“Someone will come along. Someone will step up. Merlin, Dumbledore, Scamander, Potter. Someone always does.”

“If not me, then who?” Harry challenged one of the few left who was truly his elder. “The choices are easy, or right. I’m not about to start changing my mind after two hundred years.”

Wordlessly, Nicholas Flamel held out the Elixir of Life, Perenelle watching on. Harry accepted the goblet and stared into its depths for a long moment. The liquid pulsed in time with a heartbeat not his own.

Harry had made his decision before ever crossing the Flamels’ threshold. He knocked the Elixir back in one go, and waited.

“How do you feel?” Nicholas asked.

“How long will it--” Harry broke off, startled by the sound of his own voice. It was smooth, strong, unburdened by age. He took a deep breath, his lungs and chest expanding without creaking ribs or a popping spine. Young muscles raised his arms overhead, shoulder joint unbothered by the wound earned from a Dark Wizard with an iron spike decades ago. He bounced on his toes, ankles bearing his weight without complaint, and grinned.

Nicholas and Perenelle were watching him knowingly, and it struck him that this wasn’t something that they had shared with another for centuries, if ever.

“Thank you,” Harry said, rolling his shoulders just to feel the ease of the motion.

“The debt is settled,” Perenelle said. “Goodbye, and good luck.”

Harry blinked, and he stood outside in the vineyard once more, city burning in the distance. The ruined church was nowhere to be seen, and the scent of fire and smoke was heavy on the wind. The young man turned on his heel, and disappeared.

**X x X**

The International Confederation of Wizards headquarters could be found deep within the mountains of what had once been Switzerland, but was now just another part of the European Union. At the best of times, it was filled with quarrelsome, opinionated witches and wizards whose stance on him ranged from asking his advice on every matter possible to setting the occasional assassin on him.

Today was not the best of times. The circular array of benches that seated the representatives of Ministries the world over was barely half full, yet doubly chaotic. The Supreme Mugwump was absent, and without her to control them, the representatives were screaming themselves hoarse at each other. Some had foregone the arguments entirely, and descended to dueling in the aisles.

Harry had Apparated into the representatives viewing area, set high in the wall of the main chamber, and now he made his way down into it, taking the invisible staircase with the ease of long practise. On his first visit to the auspicious chambers of the ICW, he had been impressed by the glimmering crystal walls and rich purple carpet floors. Now, he felt only vague contempt. He had foisted this undesirable position off on another more than thirty years ago.

“--a Muggle problem, and it will receive a Muggle solution!”

“Firenze is gone! Rome burns, the Colosseo is a crater, a Reaper perches upon St Peterès, and you want to wait for the Muggles to find a solution?!?”

Harry slipped into the representative’s seat in the English box, near to the middle of the array, and settled into observe. A few of the less agitated members glanced his way, but dismissed him when they weren’t greeted by the venerable face of Harry Potter. He could already feel that this venture would be a waste of time, but the attempt had to be made.

“--always knew they were fools to venture into the stars, now see what they have brought down on us!”

“We must gather our populations and retreat to our strongholds. The Muggles can weather such losses, be we cannot!”

“So you would abandon billions to their fates?!”

“They will breed more, they always do--”

“You don’t deserve the office you bribed your way--”

“How dare--!”

“You all forget the threats we live with every day!” A new voice, aided by magic, cut across all debate. “If we spend ourselves against this Muggle threat, who will stand against the Dark witches and wizards of the world when they take advantage of the chaos?”

Grumbling dissent fluttered around the hall, but none present contradicted the man. Harry knew him better than any regular political foes usually did; the young upstart had been an annoyance to him for going on twenty years in these chambers, but before that, he had been good friends with the man’s father. He was the representative from Russia, a strong man with a lumberjack’s physique whose thick beard Harry had watched sprout, but which was now starting to go grey with age. The grandfather he had disagreed with, the father he had befriended, and now the son had long determined to be as great a thorn in his side as he could.

“Witches and wizards of action, Alexei Vasiliev,” Harry said, rising to his feet and drawing eyes from all over the hall as he stared across the middle of the array. “Something of which I see precious little of in these esteemed chambers.”

Alexei scoffed, looking down on him. “England once again suggesting we might cower behind the robes of the Great Harry Potter, if only we listen to his wisdom and do as he bids. Tell me, boy, where is your wise ancestor on this day? Arse planted firmly at Hogwarts while he sends you to call for us all to band together, so we might defend his little corner of the world?” He spat into the aisle, beard bristling.

“Today, of all days, I hoped you might have put your politics aside for the good of all mankind,” Harry said, looking for the well of patience he usually drew upon when dealing with Vasiliev and his ilk and finding it empty. “Your father would have given the robe off his back to any in need, be they Magical or Muggle. He would be disappointed.”

Vasiliev’s jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth. “You speak big words for a whelp barely past his majority. I wonder how mouthy you would be without your ancestor’s reputation to bolster your courage.”

“Do not speak to me of empty words while you hold court in here, ignoring your house burning down around you,” Harry snapped. “I have already begun taking steps to save our world. I came here hoping to take another, to my folly.”

“Such large steps, from such a small man,” Vasiliev mocked. Despite his words, suspicion was writ large in his eyes. “Run back to your grandfather, and leave serious matters to your elders.” He drew his wand, motion of a silencing charm already forming.

Harry’s wand was in his hand faster than the Russian could blink, crushing the attempted charm before it could leave his wand. “You’re a pissant of a man, Vasiliev, and a disgrace to your father.”

Murmurs rose within the hall at Harry’s casual smack down of the Russian representative, one of the more feared wands from his country. One of the Asian Ministries was pointing at Harry’s wand, muttering frantically to his neighbour, but few others had realised the truth of the situation.

“You dare--who--” Vasiliev began, fury rising, but it was impotent, and he knew it. He should have known his foe the moment the man began speaking.

“The look on your face,” Harry said, words echoing in the quiet chamber. “Your grandfather wore one just like it right before I killed him.”

Vasiliev struggled with himself, but managed to master his temper. “This is your solution then, to come before this body in disguise and attempt to threaten its members into line with your politics--”

“I don’t give a damn for your politics!” Harry roared, slamming his fists onto the table. He breathed heavily, hiding his surprise at his own outburst. His pulse thundered in his ears as he glared around, the attention of the hall on the exchange. “I am here to tell you that the Wizarding World will not stand idly by while billions perish.”

The Russian stared, brows raised for a long moment, unused to dealing with anything but a calm, patient, aged Harry Potter. “You are not our Tsar,” he said at length. His wand he tucked away, returning to an arena he knew he could challenge the living legend in.

“No,” Harry said, “and I would not care to be.” He surveyed the hall, finding only political neutrals and outright foes. He should have known his truest allies would have little time for talk while their homes burned. “If you’re smart, you’ll fight. If not, I’ll do it for you.” He turned for the invisible staircase, leaving the pointless debate behind.

“--cannot threaten--”

“You have no right--!”

“--interfere with the affair or--”

“We will not be bullied--”

Harry ignored the outraged cries that erupted in his wake, instead marking those who made them. More than he had hoped, but fewer than expected. There were even a few representatives making for the exits, purpose in their strides. Vasiliev merely watched him depart, chewing over their latest confrontation and digesting the implications of his new appearance.

He took the stairs to the Apparation point two at a time, revelling in the ease of movement. He had reached the viewing room before he heard his name being called.

“--Potter! Mr Potter!”

A young wizard, still young enough to have spots, was hurriedly following him up the staircase. He lurched on it, unsteady in the way that only first timers were, yet he wore the badge that marked him as the substitute representative for the Polish Ministry of Magic.

“My time is short, young man,” Harry said. “Can I help you?”

“Mr Nowakowski, at your service,” he said, out of breath. “I was sent here in hopes of contacting you sir. Mrs Lisiewicz requests your aid.”

Harry drummed his fingers against his thigh. “The Minister is aware that the entire world is going to hell in a handbasket?”

“Yes sir, but-well-we’ve lost contact with the Moon, sir,” Nowakowski said in a rush.

“Ah,” Harry said.

“Sorcerer Twardowski has been awake for the last several months, but the Minister hasn’t received any messages through the silk mirror since the invasion began,” Nowakowski said. “The mirror cracked shortly after.”

“When I resolve this, I want Poland’s backing, and every favour they can call on, until the crisis is over,” Harry said.

“Of course sir,” Nowakowski said, relieved.

Harry glanced at him sharply. The boy hadn’t hesitated--Lisiewicz had told him to agree to any demand. “What on Earth was Twardowski working on?”

The young man hesitated. “I don’t know sir. But--I think you’re a last resort. They pulled me into a meeting with half the Department heads to give me this task, and most of them didn’t want to involve you. You specifically, sir.”

Harry growled, and Nowakowski shrank back. “I told them, I told them what I would do if he started researching his rituals again.”

“I’ve been told to make the Rooster available to you for transport, sir,” Nowakowski said, swallowing.

“No need,” Harry said, turning and stomping for the Apparation point. “I can get to the Moon myself.”

He left the ICW behind to squabble fruitlessly, Disapparating with a loud pop.

**X x X**

Walking the surface of the Moon was always a strange sensation, the feel of dust and rock crunching underfoot without the sound of anything, save his own breathing, reaching his ears. A succession of charms protected him from the hostile environment as his measured steps brought him closer to the sanctum of Jan Twardowski, one of the many occasional thorns in his side that didn’t have the good sense to die when nature intended them to. He supposed that was awfully hypocritical of him now.

At his back, Earth burned, suspended in the black like a slowly imploding space station. London, and thus much of England, was subsumed by an orange glow. Hundreds of the horrific metal beasts hung in space, silently watching the carnage wreaked on the planet below by their fellows. The Italian ICW representative had called them Reapers. Having seen the destruction below, it was an apt name.

Harry had taken a single long look at his home before turning away. He walked steadily towards his goal now, sure he was close despite never having visited it. The Reaper looming above him, along on this part of the Moon, was a bit of a giveaway.

The urge to use magic to hasten his journey was strong, but ultimately unhelpful. While it would get him out from under the Reaper faster, it would also render him incapable of finding the entrance to Twardowski’s sanctum. As it was, he only knew how to find the Sorcerer due to a research assistant having second thoughts about the ethics of the man’s research. Now decades later, the information was proving useful.

Between one heartbeat and the next, a pit began to grind open in the ground before him. Harry halted as the side door to the Polish Ministry’s lunar complex revealed itself to him, the staircase leading down into the dark. Small rocks and moon dust tumbled down into the passage, and he wasted no time in striding down into the unknown.

“And Bill said my tomb raiding days were over,” he muttered to himself.

The path was dark, but a bobbing fae light illuminated his way, revealing plain grey walls to the naked eye. An insidious enchantment lay upon the path, turning seven steps into one and negating any other method of travel entirely, but he had no time for it. The Elder Wand swished and turned through the air, disabling it, and then Harry was flying down the tunnel. Reverse engineering Riddle’s notes on his spell for unaided flight with Hermione was a treasured memory, and one of the most worthwhile tasks he had ever undertaken. Beyond the joy of flight, it was just bloody useful.

The tunnel ended, opening up into a shadowed chamber. The only light to be had came from a window set high in one wall through which, bizarrely, the moon could be seen. He touched down, boots echoing in the still chamber, and flicked his wand. The fae light rose and flared, illuminating the room and what it held.

Corpses, grey skinned and shining with unnatural blue light, were revealed to him. Most were human, or at least bipedal, although there were a few hulking brutes amongst them of some species Harry had never encountered before. As one, they turned their heads upwards to stare at the light.

It was one of the human corpses that saw him first. It growled, sending a ripple of movement through the swarm as they turned for him. There was a moment of perfect stillness, and then the howling began.

Reaching fingers, slavering jaws, questing talons, all lunged for the wizard who had stumbled into their midst. Harry spared a thought for Twardowski; if these creatures were of his creation, the man would beg for a devil to take him away by the time Harry was done with him.

The corpses--not Inferi, something else--were almost upon him before he acted. His wand swept in an arc, and his magic settled around his attackers. They stopped in place, invisible bindings grasping them tight. They strained against it in a futile effort to break free and rend him limb from limb, but it was with the unthinking savagery of a beast, not the malicious intent of a sentient being.

Flicking his wand, he conjured more light to fully illuminate the room. Plain grey walls were freed of shadow, as well as a pool of blood and chunks of raw meat within the crowd of corpses. Harry threaded his way through them without worry, coming to inspect the carnage. A muttered revealing charm betrayed the truth of the remains, and with a twitch of his wand they reverted to a comfortable looking armchair.

Glancing around, he took in the room in a new light. Aside from the secret entrance, there was only one other, and there was a pile of old cauldrons stacked in one corner. This was a storeroom, and someone had corralled the corpses in here deliberately. The corners of his mouth twitched downwards, and had his body been as old as it ought to be, the frown lines on his brow would have been out in full force. His wand came up, plucking corpses from the crowd, one of each type. They flew through the air to crash midway up the wall, where they stayed.

The rest were not so lucky. Harry whispered a curse learned during his time in Egypt, and watched as he felt it settle over the corpses. The most human like with their lack of armour were the first affected, grey skin sloughing off as their bodies began to melt. He watched in eerie silence as dozens of bodies turned to puddles of flesh and metal. A quick charm took care of the smell, and in short order, the room was clear. It was the work of a moment to float over the remains to the other entrance, and from there deeper into the complex.

Rather than be met with more plain grey walls, Harry found himself gliding down a stone hallway, more akin to an old castle than a sterile moon base. Sunlight filtered in through the occasional arrow slit, and portraits lined the walls, although they were decidedly Muggle. The sounds of frantic casting reached his ears, followed by inhuman snarls, and he hastened his flight towards the wooden door at the end of the hall.

The wooden door yielded to his wand, and Harry was greeted by a comfortable eating hall lined by wooden benches and rich tapestries. A fire crackled merrily in the middle of the room, hovering in midair, and a blonde witch was ineptly fighting for her life against a snarling knot of grey corpses at the far end of the hall. They ran at her with blank minded ferocity only to be hurled away by her spellwork, again and again.

Harry cast with the precision born of age, bisecting the zombies two at a time. In seconds, they were a mass of twitching limbs on the floor and the witch was brandishing her wand at him, white knuckled with fear.

“Kim jesteś?” the woman demanded.

“I am Harry Potter,” Harry said, shifting his fringe to reveal the famous scar.

“Potter is an old man,” she said, disbelieving.

“I got better,” Harry said dryly. This was apparently a poor choice of words, and if proof of his spellcasting ability weren’t scattered around her feet, she likely would have attacked then and there.

“How did you get here?” the woman asked.

“Your Ministry asked me to investigate when they lost contact with you,” Harry said.

“Kłamca!” she accused. “We sabotaged the Rooster. The Department would have known the dangers of sending anyone.”

Any warmth in Harry’s expression fled at the revelation. “I did not arrive via the Rooster. Your Minister asked me this favour, and I am becoming less and less inclined to leave this complex standing.”

“I do not believe you.”

“What is your name?” Harry asked, patience running thin. “Given that I just saved your life.”

Still the woman hesitated. “Aneta,” she said at length.

“Well Aneta, perhaps you’d like to guide me to Twardowski. I’m quite sure he will recognise me,” Harry said.

Whether she was glad to be given an out or if she thought her superior would be able to handle him, she agreed readily to his suggestion. She stepped gingerly over the body parts and past Harry to the door he had entered through, pulling it closed. There was a coloured dial to the right of it, and she began to manipulate it with her wand.

Harry gave the witch a once over; she was young, but old enough to have a Mastery or three under her robe. Her fingers were splattered with ink, and she smeared some across her ear when she tucked a lock of hair behind it. A researcher, and not a fighter.

Aneta tucked her wand away and opened the door. A sheltered courtyard was revealed, and above it, the darkness of space. Aneta led the way, and Harry followed. A leafless white tree occupied the centre, painted even paler by the starlight that lit the courtyard, and they passed close enough to touch its trunk. A hard won sense for magic and gut instinct warned him off, and he gave it a wide berth.

An iron strapped door was their destination, and Aneta glanced back over her shoulder as they neared it. Her gaze flicked from Harry to the tree and back almost too quick to see, but he caught it. He set his jaw; if that was the way they wanted to play it, he was more than ready to oblige.

They stepped through the portal and into a well appointed workshop. Enormous hourglasses filled with a glowing green liquid lined the walls and illuminated the room. The ceiling was a map of the solar system, artistically rendered, but Harry could make out the infestation of Reapers surrounding Earth on it. The whole place smelt of burnt flesh.

“Aneta, co się dzieje? Ty tam! Kim jesteś?” A short, white haired man demanded, striding from a workbench to confront them. He had a prominent nose and wore a well maintained chevron moustache. Dark red robes were protected by a leather apron.

Harry glanced at the grey human corpse strapped to the table behind the man, straining against its bonds, and the more vanilla corpse laid beside it. “Twardowski,” he said, rolling his wand between his fingers, “we’ve talked about this.”

Twardowski squinted at the stranger in his workshop, taking in his face, his robes--his wand. “Potter,” he said, guarded and unfriendly. “Why are you here?”

“Your Minister asked me to investigate,” Harry said. Aside from Twardowski and Aneta, there were two others in the workshop, both apron clad assistants. “Seems she got a bit nervous about whatever it is you’re working on up here when they lost contact.”

“Lisiewicz,” Twardowski said, like it was a curse.

“I don’t care about your internal politics, Twardowski,” Harry said. “I care about your disquieting habit for necromancy, and your lack of regard for my warnings.”

Twardowski crossed his arms, a motion that left his wand pocket close to hand. “The husks are not of my creation,” he said with a sniff.

Harry drummed his fingers against his thigh. “Is there another necromancer on the Moon I don’t know about?”

“No necromancer created these. They are the product of technology, and used as weapons of war.”

“You claim the Reapers created these...husks,” Harry said skeptically.

Twardowski nodded. “They arrived with ample supply, but I have also witnessed and recorded their forces turning Muggles into more.”

“And the other varieties?”

“Alien species, from what I gather,” Twardowski said. “Now, how did you get here? We shut down the Rooster.”

“Sabotaged, from what I hear,” Harry said, smiling thinly. He didn’t like this situation one bit, and the hairs on the back of his neck agreed with him. “I have my ways.”

Twardowski’s look turned annoyed. “You discovered the side entrance.”

“Quite the purpose you’d turned the storeroom to,” Harry said. “What use could you possibly have for so much necromatic alien technology?”

“Careful Potter, your personal vendetta is showing,” Twardowski said. “You may find it distasteful, but someone has to examine the enemy for weakness.”

Lies. Harry bit back the accusation, noting the way the assistants glanced at one another. “How convenient for you that they just fell into your lap.”

“The Reaper above stepped on a corner of my castle and disgorged them,” Twardowski said. “It also interrupted an experiment that shattered my mirror.”

“Your obscuring wards had no effect?” Harry asked. It was one thing for Hogwarts’ Muggle repelling wards to have no effect, but Twardowski’s defences were another matter.

“Some, or else I suspect the Reaper would have torched the castle as it did the nearby Muggle military base,” Twardowski said. “Now, have I wasted enough of our precious time answering questions, or must I endure yet more?”

The explanation rang false. Twardowski was talking around whatever it was that certain members of the Polish Ministry didn’t want him to discover. Were he a younger, more impetuous wizard, he would have pressed the Pole harder, but the years had shown him the slippery slope tread by those who let their power do the talking. “Perhaps you could show me the damage to your castle, so I might inspect your wards,” Harry said.

Twardowski nodded, grudgingly. “Aneta, show--”

“Ah, do not act such a poor host, Twardowski,” Harry chided. “Your work can wait long enough to escort me yourself.”

The sorcerer clenched his jaw, but nodded shortly. “Very well. Follow me.” To his assistant, he said, “do nothing until I return.”

Harry schooled his expression as he followed Twardowski back out into the courtyard. The Polish wizard was not a man given to placation-whatever he was hiding here had to be beyond the pale. The Elder Wand grew chill in his hand. It knew conflict neared.

“We make for the far side of the castle,” Twardowski said as they passed the white tree to head down a new passageway.

Harry nodded easily. He was reminded of a time he had surrendered to a Dark Lord in Hong Kong for the purposes of parley, and had been led through the Ministry the man had taken over. There had been five attempts to assassinate him during the walk, but given that he had only gone to parley in order to get close enough to kill him, he supposed that was fair.

They traipsed down one stonework hall, and then another, before turning right around after manipulating another coloured dial. An antechamber, another hallway and an eating hall watched them pass, and if this was the fastest way to their destination, Harry would eat his pointed hat.

“So, Janek, tell me about the white tree,” Harry said as they crossed the eating hall.

Twardowski glared over his shoulder at him. “An experiment that I’ll thank you not to interfere with,” he said, not breaking his stride.

The click of Harry’s footsteps slowed, then stopped entirely. “The Reaper never came close to damaging the castle, did it?”

Twardowski stopped the turned to face the Englishman, eyes wary. “Why do you say that?”

“Because the last time I called Twardowski by his first name, he swore to cut off my wand hand an inch at a time.”

‘Twardowski’ paused for a heartbeat, and then his wand was in his hand.

The shriveling curse was batted aside easily, but his foe was already fleeing. Where once stood a man, there was now a spider, and it scuttled for a dark gap in the stonework wall. A wordless summoning spell slipped off it like water from a duck’s back. Harry turned his wand on the mousehole instead, blocking the spider’s escape, and it skittered off in the opposite direction, under a low table.

Harry cast again, not at the spider, but the table it hid beneath. The wood shrank and twisted in on itself, parts locking and slotting together as it trapped his prey. Soon it was no more than a box, sitting innocently on the floor. It rocked impotently as Harry stooped down to pick it up. A thin spider leg poked through the grating he had crafted into it, and Harry smiled without humour.

“Let’s see how eager your master is to talk with me now.”

**X**

The iron strapped door disintegrated as Harry approached it, dust swept aside in his wake. Twardowski, the real one, looked up from the husk strapped to the table. His wand traced runic patterns on its skin, and where once it had shone with blue light, it was now green, the same eerie green let off by the liquid in the hourglasses that lined the walls.

“You were warned, Twardowski,” Harry said, and he raised the Elder Wand.

“Hold! This creature is not of my creation!” Twardowski said urgently. His wand did not cease its movements. “They are truly of Reaper origin!”

Harry paused, but only for a moment. He shook his head. “Wherever they came from, you are using them to pursue knowledge better left unknown. I forbid it for a reason.” White fire spat from his wand to consume the husk.

The mosaic floor lit up in a pattern of Egyptian runes, and the purifying flames shot back at him. He caught them easily, sucking them back into his wand. The runes he regarded with a frown; he knew them all too well.

“You forbid it,” Twardowski spat, anger worn plainly on his face. “Who are you to forbid me the knowledge I seek?”

“One who knows better,” Harry said. He knelt down, wand tracing the runes on the floor. He kept one eye on Twardowski and his assistants, but they made no move to attack, focused as they were on the arcane instruments before them.

“I crafted my sanctum well, Englishman,” Twardowski said. Most of his attention was on the husk. “Word spreads quickly when Harry Potter is bested. Your grandson held such promise.”

The look Harry gave him was one many Dark wizards would have recognised, had they still lived. “You think I did anything but correct my ignorance after Alexander’s death?” He smiled thinly. “You’re a bigger fool than I thought.”

“And yet I am still outdone by you,” Twardowski said, wandwork growing ever more frantic. “My work here will see us sweep aside the Reapers with ease. Poland will rise to its rightful glory. The Swedes--” He cut himself off. “My life’s work will be accomplished. You will not stop me now.”

“Millions are dying,” Harry said. He began scorching runes of his own into the floor. “If our home needed anything less than every last wand, you’d be dead already.”

“These invaders have provided me the last piece of the puzzle!” Twardowski said. Aneta handed him a silver knife, and he sliced his palm open, before pressing it to the husk’s head. It went still immediately. “These husks are years beyond my own efforts. It’s like they were made to be soul receptacles.” WIth his clean hand, he reached for his neck and retrieved a fine silver chain. Held in a delicate silver mesh at the end of it was a hauntingly familiar stone.

Clammy fingers grasped Harry’s heart as he countered the second to last protection.

“It is the name Jan Twardowski that will be praised in the years to come as the savior, not Harry Potter,” he said, eyes glittering with triumph. He turned the Resurrection Stone three times and whispered a name that made Harry’s blood run cold. Then he dropped the Stone into the husk’s mouth, and stood back.

All light was sucked from the room into a whirling vortex above the husk, disappearing down its throat with a sound like splintering ice. The temperature in the room rose uncomfortably, and for a moment, Harry thought he could faintly hear a train chugging its way from a station. The moment passed, and he negated the final rune, light from his wand burning away the darkness.

The husk stood, neck craned back as it gazed into the ceiling. The straps that had bound it lay unclasped, the creature had not freed itself through force. Twardowski stepped forward, bearing proud, but his assistants kept their distance, fearful of the thing they had created. As they should be.

“What have you done,” Harry said quietly.

“Great men deserve their rest,” Twardowski said. “Dark Lords, not so much.”

“You think you can bend Gellert Grindelwald to your will?” Harry asked. He waited, wand at the ready.

“Chains stronger than any Imperius bind that body to my will,” Twardowski said. His gaze never left his creation. “He will fight any foe I point him at.”

“I don’t care what precautions you’ve taken,” Harry said. “This will not end well. Death is jealous.”

Twardowski scoffed. “You place too much faith in your fairy tales. The Peverells were talented artificers, nothing more. They-” He cut himself off as the husk began to move.

Green light shone dimly from its eyes as it swept them around the room, taking in its surroundings. Its limbs twitched, as if unsure of its body, and Harry waited with the patience of a viper. If the summoning was a failure, he would reclaim the Stone and return his attentions to where they belonged. But if the soul of Grindelwald truly inhabited that body…

There were reasons Old Man Potter was feared in the darker parts of the world.

The husk held a hand out to Twardowski, and the man lay a wand in it, its wood dark and gleaming. Harry felt his last hopes dwindle and die quietly as the husk turned the wand on itself, conjuring sober robes, its skin turning slowly from grey to pink.

“I am sorry, Janie Twardowski,” Harry said. “But I warned you.”

“What serves the innocent more, Potter? Feuding with myself and Herr Grindelwald, or pooling our powers in saving what we can and then bringing me to account?” Twardowski’s confident expression spoke volumes of his thoughts on that likelihood.

For a moment, Harry hesitated. His wand arm drooped, wand pointing to the floor. To his shame, he entertained the merits of enslaving Grindelwald’s soul for the greater good of humanity.

Twardowski saw his moment of doubt and pounced. “You are wary, you are right to be. But I have taken every precaution, my name will not be added to the lists of necromancers slain by their own creations. I am no Frankenstein; here, let me show you.”

The Pole approached his monster, but by now, it hardly appeared as such. A young face only seen in Pensieves and history books looked out at them, well pressed robes hiding all skin below the neck. It was not even its eyes, glowing green, that gave it away. It was the mouth, and the cruel slash of a smirk it wore. The smirk only grew as Twardowski sliced his thumb open and pressed it against its forehead. Green light faded, but the cruelty remained.

“Apologies, doctor, but you have no strings on me,” Grindelwald said. His wand was already pointed at his creator’s heart. Twardowski paled, jaw slackening.

Harry steeled his resolve and pushed his hesitation aside. The tip of the Elder Wand sparked, a firefly flaring into being. It drifted slowly down towards the floor, falling into a crack in the mosaic. The spark latched onto the magic within it, and grew ravenous.

Grindelwald noticed the fiendfyre when the floor beneath his feet began to smoulder. A lash of white light erupted from his wand, striking Twardowski and sending him flying across the room. He struck one of the hourglasses head first and fell to the ground, unmoving. The greatest threat dealt with, to his mind at least, he turned his wand on the cursed fire, ignoring the assistants cowering from him. There was not a witch or wizard among them with the experience to challenge him.

Harry had not found himself dismissed as a threat since his children were in diapers. He raised his wand, a grey mist howling from it. The mist swept across the workshop, rotting all it touched. The wooden table that had held the husk collapsed in a wet cloud, and the assistants scrambled frantically out of the way.

The Dark Lord turned to face the new threat, abandoning his attempt to take control of the fiendfyre. The rotting mist billowed about him and was turned back, but not before it caressed his leg, turning his robe leg to threads and his calf gangrenous. Fury rose on his handsome face and he cast a spell Harry did not recognise. The mist was swept into a funnel and sucked into Grindelwald’s wand with a shriek.

The resurrected Dark Lord stared Harry down, eyes fixed on his wand. He paid no heed to the flames slowly scorching the floor everywhere but for where he stood. “That wand belongs to me,” he said.

“No longer,” Harry said. He retrieved the box holding the spider animagus from within his robes and threw it to Aneta.

The woman and her fellow were attempting to revive Twardowski; he was stirring feebly. The other assistant, a man, held armfuls of parchment like they were precious jewels. One of them had managed to negate the slow creep of Harry’s fiendfyre, but it would not last.

“Leave the records to burn,” Harry told them, eyes fixed on Grindelwald. He laid down no ultimatum, he had no need to.

“Give them to me, or suffer,” Grindelwald countered.

“I will not permit this abomination to be repeated,” Harry said.

“You have no choice. The cycle will continue. It is ineffable.”

“Cycle?” Harry questioned, voice sharp.

Grindelwald did not answer, not with words. Green light, dreadful in its absence, spat from his wand towards Harry. A silver shield sprang into being and rang like a gong as it blocked the curse and shattered into countless shining pieces. When Harry beheld the room once more, the assistant holding the papers was missing an arm, blood spurting, and the papers themselves were disappearing into Grindelwald’s robes. Aneta snapped a piece of wood, and the four responsible for the entire mess disappeared. Grindelwald moved to follow suite, turning on his heel as if to Disapparate. Harry’s wand was faster, and a vacuum spawned around the man’s head, cutting off his air and squeezing his skull.

The German did not even falter--not until his attempted escape failed utterly. The two men stared at each other for a split second, equally taken aback.

Harry recovered his bearing first. “Welcome to Luna, Grindelwald,” he said. With an aggressive upward slash, he sent his foe crashing into the ceiling-and through it, out into the forbidding atmosphere of the moon. With a thought, Harry took flight and followed him, loosing the iron grip he held on the fiendfyre. It roared to life, hunger given form, and quickly devoured the workshop. Unchecked, it would consume the physical form of Twardowski’s castle swiftly.

A shadow greeted the two wizards as they faced off on the inhospitable surface of the Moon. The Reaper loomed over them, and Harry could feel its attention on him as he stared down at Grindelwald as the man got to his feet. His leg was a putrid green, and his chest was unmoved by breath or heartbeat, but still he stood tall. They stared each other down like a pair of duellists, and Harry prepared himself for the fight of his life.

Harry cast first, not at his foe but at the sky. An anti-Apparition jinx fell around them, a faint blue aurora rippling in the thin atmosphere. The counter jinx was not complicated, and its proliferation had led to law enforcement the world over abandoning that particular jinx. A wizard of Grindelwald’s calibre would have no trouble casting it...only both jinx and counter jinx had been created scant decades ago.

Grindelwald cast three separate counter jinxes in as many seconds, before abandoning the effort as Harry pressed his attack. Grey rock beneath the Dark Lord’s feet turned to sludge and began to spin slowly. It was no transfiguration, but a curse, again from after Grindelwald’s time. Harry hovered above the landlocked maelstrom as its speed increased ponderously. He conjured a murder of crows from nothing, and directed them to descend upon his foe.

The dead man turned his wand to transfiguration, carving out a platform on which to stand. His face was expressionless, and his eyes, empty of humanity, were fixed on Harry. Overhead, the Reaper bellowed, terrible and penetrating. Harry faltered for an instant, a conductor losing his time, and the crows melted back into whence they came. Grindelwald seized his chance.

Purple lightning streaked across the sky, throwing back the shadow of the Reaper and leaving a spiderweb of afterimages in its wake. Harry dove, plummeting down to escape the treacherous skies. The lightning hounded him as he turned scant metres before the ground and shot towards Grindelwald. Bolts scorched the churning sludge in his wake, throwing up clouds of ash, others turned aside by quick spellwork--but he could not run forever. Lightning surrounded him, caging him in, and he was forced to stop as it began to tighten around him like a crackling noose.

Harry raised his wand high and traced a cross overhead. In the moment before he would have been reduced to dust, a cage of white light sprang up around him. The lightning slammed against it and was repulsed, setting the world trembling. It turned back and struck again as the Reaper’s brass bellow rang out once more, seeking to break his focus. Instinctive fear was ignored as he triggered the second stage of his protective spell, and the cage of light exploded outwards, consuming the curse that had been set on him. Grindelwald abandoned the spell and conjured protections of his own as it was followed back to him. Almost idly, Harry took the precious seconds gained and turned his wand on the abomination above. Fiendfyre sprang forth once more, latching onto one of the great metal legs--and there he abandoned it, setting it loose from all restrictions imposed by his will. Untethered, it spread the leg like wildfire, devouring the Reaper as it took the form of a horde of damned souls.

Escaping the retaliation of Harry’s protective enchantment with an old negating charm, Grindelwald turned his wand on the unchecked Fiendfyre, dismissing his foe completely, only to pause. He twitched, turning between the burning Reaper and Harry as if caught between conflicting instructions.

Whatever the cause, Harry seized his chance. A simple piercing curse took the husk that housed a wizard’s soul in the head, drilling through transfigured flesh and splattering Luna’s surface with grey matter. He gave the Dark Lord no opportunity to reveal further devilry, and with a grim flourish the husk was bisected and set aflame.

Above, the Reaper gave a bellow, but it lacked the hounding sense of despair it once had. It was tinged by fear to Harry’s ear, and it launched itself off the Moon’s surface and into space, moving away from its fellows. He watched it go, noting the spread of the unchecked Fiendfyre. The curse would die out eventually, but not before the beast was wounded beyond recovery.

Whatever the husk that had hosted Grindelwald once was, it was naught but ash...save for a faint, beckoning glimmer. Almost unwillingly, Harry descended to the Moon’s surface, keenly aware of the **W** and in his hand. He was suddenly very glad he had left his **C** loak back at Hogwarts. The **R** esurrection **S** tone sat in the dirt, symbol of the Hallows peering up at him. For a long moment, he hesitated. The **S** tone blinked and shone with the light of burning cities, and he reached out and took it. A leather pouch was conjured, the **S** tone hidden inside and tucked away in his breast pocket.

Movement caught his eye, off in the distance. Reapers were looming over the horizon - every horizon. He was surrounded by a ring of metal abominations, the net drawing tight. They saw him for the threat he was, and they were moving to end him.

Harry Potter sighed, stowing his **W** and and rummaging within his robe pocket. He was done here. He withdrew a simple hand mirror and held it above his head, glancing to make sure none of his limbs were outside its reflection. Assured, he broke it in half, and the sound echoed. A moment later, both pieces shattered, and his form followed, the pieces breaking ever smaller until he was gone from the Moon entirely.

Scant seconds later, all record of his presence was purged in a torrent of fire and hate.


End file.
